"End of an era" or "A fresh start"

13 February 2007

On May 18th the Crowborough office of Glass's Information Services will be closing. This news was officially confirmed on Thursday, after our 30 day consultation period. So, this leaves me wondering what to do next. Although permanent opportunities are available at the Weybridge office, the (at least) 3 hour round trip isn't appealing, and I have decided not to pursue them. I've been thinking about contracting/freelancing as an option, and this does hold quite a lot of appeal, especially in the short term. To be honest, I've felt a lot of frustration in my current role over the past year due to a number of reasons, not least the feeling of a lack of product strategy, leading to very reactive decisions on projects rather than a sound and stable rationale. (The article Hamburger-Management-prone organizations may be born, not made makes the point better than I can.) The idea of contracting and being uninvolved with the politics feels like it could be good for me.

However, permanent opportunities are also presenting themselves and I feel that I'd be foolish not to follow up on them. Our former CTO has moved on to RBI and has kept in touch with all of us with regards to possible opportunities. I received confirmation yesterday that there is a Lead Developer role going at East Grinstead, and as my CV was already in the RBI network (as I've heard good things about the company in recent months), I've got an interview there on Friday. This is going to be interesting, as it will be the first time I've been interviewed since attending management training courses and being more actively involved in the recruitment process. I'm not sure whether this is a positive or negative at the moment, but I'm sure it'll be a learning experience.

And just in case anyone reading this has a Brighton based (preferably) opportunity, then my CV is available as HTML or PDF.

Jane Dallaway: I want to make the world a kinder place because I believe a kinder world would be a fairer and more inclusive place. I am curious and kind. I have keen attention to detail, am great at organisation and planning, and love language. I was born in Hull but belong in Brighton. I spend my spare time singing with Soul of the City choir, reading, writing letters for 'The Silver Line' and for 'From Me to You', walking the dog, and taking photographs. I am the maintainer of brightonbloggers.com.